Erik-
The decision to limit the number of facets to the top 30 was not due
to bad data, but rather to the desire to keep the interface simple
enough to not be intimidating to users, and to not slow down
retrieval/display of results. Before we went live to the public, we
allowed all facets to be displayed on our test implementation. This, I
might add, was very handy for catalogers, who were able to see and fix
the myriad problems associated with incorrect subfield codes and field
tags. In particular, with form/genre headings that showed up as
topical, but also with geographic subheadings showing up as topical or
chronological, and other problems. Response time on the development
server was not as good as it could have been had we limited the
expansion of the facets, even under a low usage load, but more
importantly, facet lists scrolled on forever. This should not be too
surprising, given the literally tens and even hundreds of thousands of
unique authors, topical, genre, and geographic headings in our
catalogs. There were discussions about the sort order that should be
presented for these facets as well. Obviously, sorting of faceted terms
by frequency is useful for indicating something about the relevance of
certain terms or names to your search, but beyond a certain point this
is not very useful when you are trying to research into the "long
tail". Getting into these more unique, less-posted, facets now is
really only possible when one increases precision by adding additional
terms or filters to one's search, the behavior we are rewarding through
limiting the display as we have. I assume that FCLA is having similar
discussions amongst its stakeholders about the trade-offs they will need
to make to optimize Endeca for their users.
Charley
Erik Hatcher wrote:
> Are there facet values not being shown? From what I hear of NCSU's
> system, only the top 30 or so facets are shown, and the others are so
> much lower in frequency as to be considered bad data. I'm curious if
> this is a similar configuration in your implementation?
--
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Charley Pennell mailto:cpennell_at_unity.ncsu.edu
Principal Cataloger for Metadata voice: (919)515-2743
Metadata and Cataloging Department fax: (919)515-7292
NCSU Libraries, Box 7111
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7111
Adjunct Librarian, Memorial University of Newfoundland
World Wide Web: http://www.ibiblio.org/hillwilliam/chuckhome.html
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Received on Wed Jan 17 2007 - 09:57:03 EST